Peaky Blinders: The Loop (Series 5, Episode 4 Review)

“For now, love must defeat revenge”

After the declaration of all out war last week, it’s a tad disappointing to see the Billy Boys greeted immediately with a peace pact. However, it’s handled exquisitely. “You left me a landmine” Tommy laments. “For which I apologise” McCavern sarcastically responds. This being Peaky Blinders, any peace is fractious. “Nothing here is stolen Mr McCavern, Charlie simply finds things before they’re lost”. This agreement comes as a result of their mutual “friend” Oswald Mosley. The big showdown will not be televised, this week anyway, and that’s reflected in an episode that feels like the calm before the storm.

Calm in Small Heath is a dubious notion because there’s still lots happening, most worryingly of all is the fate of Mrs Connors’ songbirds but it’s ok because Arthur will replace them with birds that have the “same colours and.. feathers”. Tommy’s constituency is of course at the Garrison and his next visitor ups the ante. Brilliant Chang offers a brilliant plan involving opium for Tommy to transport and it gives the Shelbys an opportunity to recover money lost in the crash.

In truth, Tommy has more on his mind than money. Grace keeps revisiting at inconvenient times and she’s no longer a friendly ghost. “It wasn’t the blue stone Tommy, it was you”. The visions may be getting a bit overcooked now. It clearly serves the purpose of showing Tommy’s descent into madness but if people haven’t got that by now they haven’t been paying attention. One thing that is notable about the scene was the use of (Graces?) heavy breaths. That combined with his own coughing fits and breathiness serve as a reminder that Tommy feels more mortal than ever. His weakness shows on the outside now and he was clearly rattled by Mosley.

The set piece of ‘The Loop’ is saved for the very end. A grand ballet is the setting for much intrigue, or as Oswald puts it “an evening with a tribe of gypsies” (incidentally, that’s a show which never got past the ITV Commissioners). Tommy is late due to performing his own bed based ballet much to the chagrin of Mosley. Worse still, the moody guest had previous entaglements with Lizzie back in the day but turns out his own performance was cancelled early due to champagne. AWKS. It’s Come Dine With Me but with drugs, sexual intrigue and murder. Yes, murder but we’ll get to that bit.

While the dancers swan about to Arthur’s snoring, Aberama whisks Polly away and proposes. It’s kind of sweet. “Let’s fuck before the swan dies” she insists. You definitely don’t get that on Come Dine With Me. Meanwhile Linda turns up on the doorstep with a vengeance. We think she’s shot her ex. We think Arthur is dead.. again, but out of nowhere Polly appears (the lovin’ clearly didn’t last long) to put a bullet into Linda . It’s a device that has been used too often for Arthur now but the whole thing was beautifully shot. So was Linda, as it goes.

A LITTLE PEAK:

– The best line was with Ada insisting Tommy throw away the opium. “How much of it have you got left?” she asks. The reply? “Seven tonnes”

– “FUCKING BALLET?!” We’re with you on this one, Michael.

– He may be back in the gang but is Tommy setting Michael up for a fall? Will the Chinese really hang for things if they go wrong?

– No talk of the black cat this week which adds to the feeling that it’s someone in the background. Esme or Frances maybe?

– Finn didn’t piss himself at gunpoint. We’re so proud.

– Did Arthur actually replace those birds in the end? We need to know. Poor old Mrs Connors.

Peaky Blinders: Strategy (Series 5, Episode 3 Review)

“IT’S WAR YOU WANT, IT’S WAR YOU SHALL HAVE”

Never has walking into an orphanage looked so cool. After the guitar riffing and hot stepping, Tommy and Polly have a sort of “moral off” with some nuns and for once the Shelbys come off better due to the fact they don’t beat up children. It should probably go down as a pyrrhic victory. “There is God and there are the Peaky Blinders” he warns as they withdraw their funding. Polly is in threatening mode too: “You listen for my footsteps”. There’s little chance of missing them to be honest. It’s a surprising opening scene but perfectly shows the conflict at Tommy’s core. A man that has many bad habits.

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Speaking of which, his sister doesn’t get much of an act bar being Gina’s taxi service. Ada feels very underused this series but this may be down to filming commitments elsewhere. Michael is indesposed by a meeting with “the devil himself”, Oswald Mosley. It’s as much to do with people politics than actual politics but we do learn that Mosley has connections to Jimmy McCavern and that he’s made the police investigation go away.

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The Tommy versus Michael saga continues at an intriguing pace. Our main main literally treating him like the shit on his shoes but keeping him close all the same. Michael does face up to his nemesis again to say “By the time that baby draws its first breath we will be done”. Is it a friendship beyond repair?

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With all this political manoeuvring it’s no surprise to see the return of Jessie Eden who is greeted by a tired, out of sorts Tommy. He’s literally a champagne socialist as he slurs his words and pops his cork. Jessie’s confused by his motives but then it’s not totally clear if Tommy knows what his own agenda is.

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In all, episode three has a more sedate pace than the rest of the series so far. The grand scale and atmospherics are toned down. Perhaps the show needed it but initially it feels slightly flat compared to what’s gone before. That said, there are two outstanding scenes that close it out..

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Arthur seeks out the refuge where Linda has been hiding and the man she’s had the audacity to talk to. In a cleverly shot contrast he punches the man repeatedly, beats him with a chair leg and knives him all while the camera stays still. It makes the violence even more uncomfortable. Arthur cries out “There is good in my heart but these hands belong to the Devil!” The second mention of the antichrist tonight. Make of that what you will.

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Even better is Aberama Gold’s head to head with the Billy Boys. He’s after Jimmy McCavern for who he has a bullet. He shows up at Border Control and gives them a taste of their own medicine (a broken arm) but pouring boiling tar over his victim is adding insult to injury.

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Never ones to make a quiet entrance, the Glaswegian gang are back for revenge of the revenge but they’re louder than Polly’s boots and Gold, with the help of Arthur, leaves them the present of a grenade. The glee on McCavern’s face at this declaration of war is glorious. It’s even better for us because we can watch it all unfold at home with a cup of tea and not be brutally maimed.

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A LITTLE PEAK

– Tommy agrees to be Mosley’s deputy leader in his new ‘British Union Of Fascists’ party but we soon find out it’s as an informant. Or is it?

– “I’ve decided to balance my heart against my head” The moment Lizzie compromises her head and body for the sake of her lifestyle.

– Johnny Dogs is a dirty dog. Who knew?

Peaky Blinders: ‘The Company’ (Series 4, Episode 6 Review)

“Big fucks small”

So it turns out the ominous shadow of Alfie Solomons was not being followed by further shady characters. Not directly anyway. He just wants a chat and chats with Alfie are always a one sided affair, he regales Tommy of his plans to move to Margate and intentionally(?) offers some cryptic advice.

Meanwhile, back out in the boxing ring “gypsy boy” is taking a bit of a battering but it’s all for show. The ladies are getting merry and Arthur’s drug induced paranoia proves correct. In a dark corner of the venue he is jumped on, strangled and left for dead. Tommy arrives too late but fires shots in the ring out of fury. For what is essentially the second billing character to be killed off is a shocker and for the first time in a few episodes makes real the threat of the Mafia. Finn even comes of age in true Peaky fashion by taking the eyes out of a “wop”, glee covering his face as he does so. Welcome to the dark side, Finn. It’s exactly the sort of exhilarating set piece the show thrives off. Violence and intrigue matched perfectly.

“You can sign them on your knees”

Tommy has a new plan and it looks a lot like the white flag of surrender Changretta’s mother was just waving at him. In a move that gives an impression the series is going to end on a whimper, he agrees to sell over his businesses to Luca. The moment Tommy gets to his knees and starts reeling off a speech after minutes of silence is when you realise we’ve been deceived. Deception has played such a big role in series five, it really should have its own credit on IMDB. Heeding Alfie’s “advice”, they find someone bigger and turn the just thrown tables round onto Luca. The gunmen that have been trained on the Blinders now turn to their enemy.

That’s not all, though is it? From being redundant and then dead of all things, Arthur suddenly turns up to be the one who shoots Luca with his own bullet. We’ve been conned again but it’s all worth it for the shock value. Welcome back Arthur, though we didn’t get the chance to miss you.

“Alfie, stop talking!”

In a more gory and unromantic version of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Tommy meets Alfie on Margate beach. No ice creams, no seaside reminiscing, just penance for treachery. Even with death encroaching, Solomons still babbles on and only a bullet to the face stops him. Is he even dead? Even if the dog gave him mouth to mouth his chances aren’t looking good, frankly. Women might not fancy Tom Hardy so much with half a face.

“Distilled for the eradication of seemingly incuarable sadness”

Arthur’s words that the “war is over” don’t ring true though. The Mafia may be gone but the much bigger war still is playing on Tommy’s mind. On a self-imposed break he retreats back into the PTSD and no amount of gin is going to put a smile on his face. No matter how bad he felt, his strop at golf was perfectly justified. So, who do you call when you’ve got a really depressing montage to soundtrack? Radiohead, of course.

“Your cause is now my cause”

Tommy and Jessie reunite, get naked and fight for socialism together. Which sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? In a political twist more surprising than Jeremy Corbyn’s first Labour leadership victory, our main man runs for office and soon becomes the representative for Birmingham South. How much is for personal gain and how much is actually for social justice is up for debate and will surely be explored in the next series. It’d be great to see more of Jessie (we saw quite a lot of her tonight to be fair, nudge nudge) with a more substantial storyline.

Did the set up six weeks ago live up to its own billing? Probably not. The threat was never quite as bad as was made out. However, Peaky Blinders always serves up unexpected twists and thrills through the lens of incredibly shot, brilliantly acted television. If series five is the last, let’s cherish every minute because we won’t see its like again. 9/10

 

 

Peaky Blinders: ‘Dangerous’ (Series 4. Episode 4 Review)

“If you’re here in one hour, I swear to God I will cover you in tar and fucking feathers”

One of the many great strengths of Peaky Blinders is the unpredictability of its narrative. It never adheres to a set formula and that is shown off with great dexterity tonight. The first half plays out like a series finale. Teapots are shaking and guns are blazing as a woman from the past comes back to haunt Arthur. The second half takes the foot off the pedal and even the loud reintroduction of Alfie Solomons can’t shift the gloom encompassing Small Heath.

Mrs Ross, the mother of a boy killed in the ring at the hands of the moustachioed one, offers Arthur round for a nice cuppa and a big slice of decoy cake, which tastes even worse than last week’s dry scone. It’s all a trap so Mr Changretta can sneak into the hospital unchallenged and he’s not turned up with grapes. Turns out, this is just more gameplay too. He pushes an unloaded gun into Michael’s sweaty forehead and pulls the trigger. It’s all about the drama and that was a truly dramatic way to open the show.

As Luca saunters away, turbo charged on his own raging gangster pheromones, things soon come to a standstill at a road block. This time it’s Luca who has been lured into a trap. One of Aberama Gold’s making. Gypsies assemble (now that’s an idea for Marvel) en masse and shoot to kill. Changretta gets away. Of course he does, but the driver isn’t so lucky. It establishes just how dangerous the two sides are and shows that Tommy being between the two parties means he is the very epicentre of the storm.

“Sometimes he sees something glamorous and expensive.. he just can’t resist it. He’s so weak”

Lady Carleton is back on the scene and even though she’s smelling of paraffin it won’t put Tommy off. They talk about horses and drink gin but it’s quite obvious the chemistry between them is as explosive as the factory when he walks through it. The train strike that never happened was another trap. but this one didn’t catch its intended target. They kiss but the lady isn’t for turning. She has his horse but he doesn’t have her heart.

Speaking of long faces, this brings out Lizzie’s exquisite bitchiness (“fuck Tommy and his cock and his gin”). Her seething jealousy is not in the slightest bit hidden, yet Tommy remains oblivious. He might have to take notice soon if Lizzie is pregnant, as is hinted here.

 

“Morning Alfie”

It is a typically grand introduction for Tom Hardy, clearly still loving the role of Alfie and making his potty mouth sound so ridiculously poetic. Which side is he on? What kind of world is this for kids to live in? Answers on a postcard. He squares up to Aberama Gold with great comic pathos. This is a verbal wrestle but they set up a proper one and Gold’s boy is, as ever, up for the fight. Quite where this storyline  is heading is a mystery but it’ll certainly be an entertaining spectacle.

“Just tell us where and when. We’ll do the rest”

Of course, Michael is now wise to Polly’s deal with the devil and we have to wait most of the episode to know what he does with the information. As it turns out, he simply wishes his boss a good weekend. Which is nice, isn’t it? If you disregard the fact he’s letting Tommy leave that building knowing he could be dead by Monday morning. Still, Australia is nice this time of year..

As Tommy sets of, his car is followed by Luca and his gun toting team while a pensive Polly looks on. Is Peaky Blinders brave / mad enough to kill Tommy Shelby? Answers on a postcard to:

Alfie Solomons

1 Smells of pig road

Shithole

England.

8/10

 

 

 

 

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